There's no doubt that today we face many environmental problems: pollution, deforestation, drought, sprawl, overfishing, etc..., but what gets the most attention and is the driving force for policy is CO2. The idea is that increased atmospheric CO2 makes the earth warmer, makes ice caps melt, makes sea level rise, etc... But what if it doesn't? The above graph was used for years to "prove" that increased atmospheric CO2 levels CAUSED increased global temperatures. That was until word got out that the temperature change always came BEFORE the CO2 change. Every time. You can see that in the graph if you look closely, and the study's authors were very up front about it; but others purposely portrayed it as opposite. Some still do - notite me varue word 'coincide' still do - notice the vague word 'coincide' in the above caption. But most folks now acknowledge that temperature occurred first and say instead: a rather nebulous unknown "something" caused temperature to start rising, and then CO2 accelerated it. So there's not historical evidence that CO2 has raised temperatures. Is there even evidence that CO2 even has the ability to raise temperatures? Hard to say, when the vast majority of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor, which is both more abundant (about 25,000 ppm vs 400 ppm) and more effective than CO2. Deforestation is bad in many aspects, but is lost CO2 remediation really one of them? Maybe if we focus on their value for things such as wildlife habitat and heat island effect, then perhaps appropriate protections can be made. Nearly all ice cap melting narratives turn out to be soot related, if you read far enough. Nearly all 'sea level rise' narratives turn out to be subsidence (gradual settling or Nearly all CO2-based temperature rise effects turn out to be land clearance effects, if you read far enough. If the money put into CO2 projects were instead put into land conservation and pollution remediation and cleaner combustion (more CO2 and less soot) then the overall environment could be improved. To truly improve the environment, a shift in resources is needed. Focusing on CO2 is a classic case of "barking up the wrong tree". 2. whether a shift away from fossil fuels is truly beneficial to the environment as a whole, or a misdirection on resources. 3. the idea that solar/wind industries should be run by nonprofit organizations - the principal point being that if climate change is such an ominous thing, then no one should be making a profit on it; thus cost would be lower and more progress made; that activists should not be profiting off environmental remediation, and that doing so is a conflict of interest. 4. whether resources should be redirected to more meaningful but less trendy areas of environmentalism. 5. what motives people (scientists, politicians, etc ...) might have in keeping the focus of environmentalism on CO2, even to the detriment of the environment itself..